Alleged omissions and wrong choices, therefore, also in relation to the possible absence of a person on guard on the bridge, or to the passengers still in the cabins who should have been alerted and gathered in the lounge; it is a fact that among the 15 survivors, 9 are crew members out of a total of 10, and 6 are passengers out of 12 who were on board. Among other aspects to be assessed, the engines turned off, the stern hatch, perhaps open, and the failure to activate in good time the system that should have sealed the 56-meter sailing vessel, preventing, as happened, a large amount of water from being taken on board quickly. An unpreparedness and an underestimation of the weather warning would emerge: the New Zealand captain James Cutfield, 51, is said to have said that he did not notice the arrival of the storm. The prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio listened to him for a couple of hours to reconstruct what happened both before and during the storm.
Only that the British-flagged superyacht sank in the space of a few minutes, “three to five, from the moment the boat was lifted by the waves of the sea until it sank”, according to the words of some survivors – while other boats, even smaller, resisted. Other survivors were also heard. Important testimonies that will allow those investigating to evaluate the weight of the exceptional nature of an atmospheric event, but also of this alleged series of human errors compared to an event that did not cause any damage, for example, to the schooner that was moored a short distance from the Bayesian, the “Sir Robert Baden Powell”, from which in fact the very first aid for the shipwrecked departed. It will soon be time for the autopsies on the recovered bodies, starting with those of the president of Morgan Stanley International, Jonathan Bloomer, and the British magnate Mike Lynch, taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Policlinico in Palermo.
Unrepeatable acts that will presuppose the first suspects in the inquiry that British political and financial protagonists are also watching with extreme attention. The spotlight is now on the decisions of the Termini Imerese prosecutor’s office that is investigating for shipwreck, disaster, multiple homicide and injuries, all negligent crimes, provided for by specific articles of the penal code that also provides for the same crimes committed with intent. An alleged chain of errors would be at the origin of the sinking of the yacht, Monday off the coast of Porticello. The partially raised mobile keel could have played a decisive role in the reduced stability and consequent rapid sinking of the “Bayesian” off the coast of Porticello, where it is estimated that a wind of 80 knots was blowing. A circumstance confirmed by the firefighters’ cave divers who descended in recent days to a depth of about 50 meters.
The lowered keel, experts explain, could have counteracted the force of the wind that bends the boat sideways, especially in the case of a massive mast that acts as a lever. And the aluminum mast of the superyacht, which remained attached, measures 75 meters. It is one of the elements, together with the others to be ascertained, that would make the Termini Imerese prosecutor’s office veer more decisively towards the hypothesis of human error. Answers could come from the black box. The last moments of those who lost their lives in this tragedy deserve a separate chapter. In fact, from the testimonies it would emerge that the passengers looked for escape routes, reaching the opposite side of the vessel in which they were. But the water had already reached the rooms and five of them were found in that direction, not in their rooms. But on the opposite side. Precisely as they were trying to save themselves. From the United Kingdom instead emerges the circumstance that Mike Lynch had thought of selling his superyacht (for 30 million pounds) before his trip to the Mediterranean, but changed his mind after his acquittal.
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2024-08-24 07:22:06
